ENC1A - Spain v Georgia Preview A key match in the offing!

27/02/2015 - 11/03/2015

This is a significant match for both Spain and visiting Georgia in the third round of Rugby Europe Championship, as they are trying to recapture their first round form and fortunes, when they had the better of Russia and Germany respectively. But as Chris Thau reports, there was not that much plain sailing for either team in the second round, as Georgia struggled to beat Portugal, while Spain had to acknowledge defeat at the hands of a robust Romania.

Georgia is one of Spain’s most recent opponents, having commenced to play each other some 15-years ago. It was in 2000 that Spain played Georgia for the first time, a match which ended in a 36-32 win for Leones, captained at the time by Alvar Enciso. This was the first of the 15 matches played so far, with the 16th scheduled for the weekend, at the Madrid University rugby ground. The last time Spain managed to overcome the bruising Lelos was in 2007, when Los Leones won 31-17 under the captaincy of No8 Ivan Criado, at the same ground. Georgia, arguably the most successful of the newly-emerged European nations, has prevailed in all their matches since, with the 60-0 annihilation of 2011 still a sore memory for Los Leones. After another mini-disaster in 2013, when Georgie prevailed 61-18, the Spanish recaptured their credibility and self-belief with a solid performance in a 17-24 defeat. Will they be able to add the Lelos to their scalp list this time around?

The history and the odds are unlikely to favour such an outcome. However, it should not be ruled out, given the quality of the playing personnel of the Spanish team as well as the expertise available. It has been widely reported that the former England and Leicester lock forward Louis Deacon has joined the staff of Santiago Santos for the Rugby Europe Championship and the changes to the Spanish line-up suggest an attempt to strengthen the set-pieces by adding a bit of steel up front as well as some inches to the lineout.

Santos made four changes to the pack, one positional, with the front row as the main casualty. Franck Jean-Louis Labbe and Benat Auzuqui replace Fernando Martin Lopez Perez and Marco Pinto Ferrer, with the tight-head prop Jusus Moreno Rodriguez, the only front row player to retain his place after the defeat in Romania. In the second row David Gonzales will come off the bench to partner skipper Jesus Recuerda, with Ignacio Villanueva moving to the back row for David Barrera who is out.

It is clear that Santos and Deacon consider the physical and mental capacity to absorb the Georgian scrum pressure as key to Spain’s ability to develop an attacking game. They must have watched the match Georgia v Portugal, which confirmed that a well-organised defence based on accurate and well-timed tackling and a strong scrummage platform could deny Georgia the space and time they needed to develop their game. The Spanish back division has been strengthened as well, with the addition of two possibly key players, who make their international debut, French-born centre Thibaut Visensang of Bayonne, a former France U20 player and New Zealander Bradley Linklatter a former Auckland University fullback who is qualified to play for Spain through residence.

Georgia, who are keen to develop a strong momentum for the later stages of Rugby Europe Championship when they will be confronted by the mighty challenges of their fellow East European rivals Russia and Romania are aware of the challenge and unlikely to be ambushed. When Georgia coach Milton Haig announced the line-up for Saturday’s game, he pointed out that he considers Spain one of the top three teams in Europe, and that his players are prepared accordingly. "Spain is an important match for us. We regard them as the second best opposition team in the ENC behind Romanian and our selection reinforces that. This is the best team we have available and it will be very important we play well" Milton Haig said.